tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12298809935971440362018-03-06T08:24:26.333-08:00AJJUGEEJeckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00913871084480825693noreply@blogger.comBlogger373125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1229880993597144036.post-11633966414714912772012-05-15T11:28:00.003-07:002012-05-15T11:28:50.258-07:00Stormy start to Hollande presidencyIf he had, it might have lent a misleading air of optimism about the new political era.<br /><br />As it was, it was grim. "Hail to the chief" took on a whole new meaning, as Mr Hollande got a soaking at the tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.<br /><br />Umbrellas snapped inside-out. Rain blurred the lenses of 1,000 television cameras. It was less of a bright new dawn, more of just another wretched day in the city.<br /><br />But it was fitting, because no-one in France - least of all the socialists themselves - wanted to dress the inauguration up as a miraculous moment of change.<br />Dream over<br /><br />Comparisons abound with the start of the Mitterrand presidency in 1981. But back then there really was a whiff of revolution in the air, and a dream of a happier time to come.<br /><br />Today the atmosphere reflects 30 years of accumulated disappointments.<br />Continue reading the main story<br />“Start Quote<br /><br /> He looked already worn down by the looming responsibilities”<br /><br />Everyone knows France is in a depressing state. Everyone knows that there is more discomfort to come.<br /><br />All that can be hoped for is slow, methodical crisis management. The dreaming time is over.<br /><br />Perhaps to ward off the awful moment, Mr Hollande spent his first day in office a bit like he was on the final day of his campaign.<br /><br />For the last time, at the Elysee Palace and then afterwards, he was able to touch on those election themes - justice, youth, education, national unity - that he knows create a warm feeling among his audience.<br /><br />In three separate speeches, he dwelt on how his presidency will differ from his predecessor Nicolas Sarkozy's by being more open, more inclusive, more modest.<br /><br />He visited memorials to two of his heroes - the 19th-Century education reformer Jules Ferry and the great Polish-French scientist Marie Curie - as if to inspire himself from their example.<br /><br />And at each stop he dived into the crowd - never large ones, it has to be said - for handshakes and autographs and a last reminder of what it is like to be a freshly-minted leader.<br />Ominous weather<br /><br />He seemed in his element, but when you looked closely you could see that the new president had changed.<br /><br />Before, his bonhomie played a crucial role in making him electable.<br /><br />He was always affable, at ease - and even when talking of serious issues, able to crack a joke.<br /><br />Today he looked already worn down by the looming responsibilities. It was not just the rainstorms. He looked grim as well.Jeckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00913871084480825693noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1229880993597144036.post-2799039657783158972012-05-15T11:24:00.002-07:002012-05-15T11:24:41.702-07:00Mancini demands summer spree to build on Man City's Premier League triumphManchester City boss Roberto Mancini hopes to be allowed to spend big this summer in pursuit of further success.<br /><br />Mancini wants to add the Champions League to this season's Barclays Premier League title victory.<br /><br />City have spent heavily since their takeover by Abu Dhabi's Sheikh Mansour in 2008 to establish a position of prominence in the English game. <br /><br />Chairman Khaldoon al-Mubarak has said there is now no need to spend the lavish sums of previous summers, because the squad is already strong, but Mancini still wants more top names.<br /><br />He told BBC Sport: 'Barcelona and Real Madrid every year buy two or three players and spend a lot of money. I think for Manchester City it will be the same.<br /><br />'We need to improve. We need to have the strength to play Champions League and Premier League.'<br /><br />Mancini will also focus on the current squad, with speculation still likely to surround the controversial figures of Carlos Tevez and Mario Balotelli.<br /><br />Tevez was widely expected to leave in the summer after failing in his attempts to engineer a move during the January transfer window<br /><br />Yet after returning to the club following his infamous self-imposed exile in Argentina to play a key role in the run-in, the apparently reintegrated 28-year-old has said he wants to stay.<br /><br />Their dispute now over, Mancini said: 'It's not difficult to manage Tevez. He's a good guy. We had a good relationship always.<br /><br />'I don't know why we had that situation in September but in the end he's a good guy and a fantastic player.'<br /><br />Mancini wants to keep Balotelli despite creating headlines for misdemeanours on and off the field during the season.<br /><br />Mancini said he would probably try to sell his fellow Italian after his sending-off at Arsenal last month but the pair are now reconciled. <br /><br />The City manager told Gazzetta dello Sport: 'Mario has been very clear and I reiterate: Balotelli will remain at Manchester 101 per cent.<br /><br />'I am confident he will have a great European Championship. I hope Mario will be the leader of the national team because he is the best Italian striker.<br /><br />'He just needs to make his brain work. That is his only problem.'<br /><br />It has been reported that Mancini will be rewarded for overseeing City's first league win in 44 years with a new contract, but he says the situation has not yet been discussed with the sheikh.<br /><br />The 47-year-old, who took charge at the Etihad Stadium in December 2009, said: 'He sent me a message of congratulations, he was happy.<br /><br />'We haven't spoken about a new contract but I am very happy to work here. The basis is here to start a cycle.Jeckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00913871084480825693noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1229880993597144036.post-38953163269740293022012-05-15T11:22:00.002-07:002012-05-15T11:22:51.028-07:00No decision on Saudi-Bahrain unionArab states of the (Persian) Gulf Cooperation Council have failed to make any concrete decision on forming a confederation that would initially merge Saudi Arabia with Bahrain. <br /> <br />Council members, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Oman met in the Saudi capital Riyadh on Monday and agreed to continue further discussions over the plan, put forward by Saudi Arabia, in December. <br /> <br />Reports say Riyadh is planning to give Manama internal political autonomy while it would stay in charge of the country’s military affairs. <br /> <br />Bahrain's opposition has already rejected the initiative. <br /> <br />Some believe that the plan is an attempt to shore up the Saudi-backed regime crackdown on pro-democracy protests in Bahrain. <br /> <br />On Monday, a statement by the Iranian Majlis (parliament) condemned the Saudi proposal for merger with Bahrain and denounced the plan as illogical, saying the “unwise” measure will further destabilize the region and multiply its problems. <br /> <br />The statement asserted that political force and pressure cannot silence the frustrated Bahraini people who have been holding anti-government demonstrations since mid-February 2011 and calling on the U.S.-backed Al Khalifa family to leave power. <br /> <br />On March 14, 2011, more than 1,000 Saudi troops entered Bahrain to assist the Manama government in suppressing the peaceful popular protests. <br /> <br />Saudi Arabia is reportedly seeking to merge with Bahrain in line with plans to unify the six Arab member states of the [Persian] Gulf Cooperation Council. <br /> <br />In December 2011, Saudi King Abdullah called on the council member states to move “beyond the stage of cooperation and into the stage of unity in a single entity.” <br /> <br />However, some members of the council have expressed concern about Saudi Arabia’s possible dominance over the other five countries if the six Arab states become unified.Jeckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00913871084480825693noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1229880993597144036.post-17385113175748368762012-05-15T11:20:00.001-07:002012-05-15T11:20:17.995-07:00Iran, IAEA in 'good exchange', to meet again MondayVIENNA — Talks between the UN atomic agency and Iran saw a "good exchange of views" and will resume on Monday, two days before world powers meet Tehran representatives in Baghdad, the watchdog's chief inspector said.<br /><br />"During these two days we discussed a number of options to take the agency verification process forward in a structured way," Hermann Nackaerts said Tuesday in a joint statement to journalists with Iran's ambassador Ali Asghar Soltanieh.<br /><br />"We had a good exchange of views and we will meet again on Monday," he said.<br /><br />Soltanieh said: "We had fruitful discussions in a very conducive environment. We have made progress on this issue regarding preparing and negotiating the modality framework for resolving our outstanding issues."<br /><br />Neither gave further details, including on whether International Atomic Energy Agency access to the Parchin military site was discussed at the talks at Iran's embassy here.<br /><br />A day earlier Nackaerts had said he wanted to press Iran for "access to people, documents, information and sites" in its contested nuclear programme.<br /><br />In particular Nackaerts wants Iran to address claims made in an extensive IAEA report in November that at least until 2003, and possibly since, there were "activities relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device."<br /><br />He also wants access to the Parchin military base near Tehran where the IAEA report said Iran had conducted explosives tests in a metal container.<br /><br />In two visits to Tehran in January and February, branded a "failure" by Washington, the IAEA said Iran denied Nackaerts access to Parchin and dismissed out of hand the claims made in the report as based on forgeries.<br /><br />Western countries accuse Iran of removing evidence at the base, but Soltanieh said in March that any allegations of "sanitization" of the site were "a childish (and) ridiculous story made out of nothing."<br /><br />Iran, which disputed the IAEA's version of events during the two visits, says that since no nuclear activities took place at Parchin, it is under no obligation to allow the IAEA in.<br /><br />It has said it would allow access to Parchin but only as part of a broader agreement on "modalities" for future cooperation.<br /><br />Inspectors already visited Parchin near Tehran twice in 2005 and found nothing, Iran says, but the IAEA says it has since obtained additional information that makes it want to go back.<br /><br />Parchin is in fact "believed to be less significant than other sites on the IAEA's wish list," said Mark Hibbs, analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and an expert in nuclear proliferation.<br /><br />But the agency chose the site before others because its information on Parchin, unlike on other locations, was not based on information from foreign intelligence services -- sources which the IAEA refuses to reveal.<br /><br />Hibbs said that "some IAEA officials see Tehran's refusal of access as a challenge to the IAEA's primacy in setting the agenda for inspections, and for that reason the IAEA will continue to request access to that site as a matter of principle."<br /><br />The Vienna talks were being closely watched for signs of whether the Iranians might make substantial concessions on May 23 in their talks in Baghdad with P5+1 powers -- the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany.<br /><br />Greater cooperation with the IAEA is a key area where the P5+1 would like to see the Iranians becoming more accommodating in order to better verify Tehran's assertion that its nuclear programme is entirely peaceful.<br /><br />The IAEA has been saying for several years now that it is unable to confirm this, leading to several rounds of UN Security Council resolutions calling on Iran to halt all enrichment of uranium.<br /><br />Enriched uranium can be used for peaceful purposes such as power generation and producing medical isotopes, but also when highly purified as the core of an atomic bomb.<br /><br />Other Iranian concessions might include suspending the enrichment of uranium to purities of 20 percent. In return they want sanctions to be eased, but there is little in the way of relief the P5+1 can offer at this point, experts say.Jeckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00913871084480825693noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1229880993597144036.post-12746484955304646482012-05-15T11:19:00.002-07:002012-05-15T11:19:16.552-07:00Palestinian strike: a coup for non-violent protestJERUSALEM — The deal which ended the Palestinian prisoners' mass hunger strike not only headed off a confrontation with Israel, but it also proved the growing success of their strategy of non-violent protest.<br /><br />The agreement, signed just hours before Nakba Day when Palestinians mourn the "catastrophe" which befell them in the war that accompanied Israel's independence in 1948, provided a happy ending for both local, regional and international players.<br /><br />Not only did the prisoners manage to improve their lot through the deal, but Israel was able to avoid what could have been a potentially lethal backlash if any of the prisoners had died, in a move which saw all sides breath a sigh of relief.<br /><br />In a statement welcoming the deal, Middle East Quartet envoy Tony Blair said he had repeatedly pushed Israel "to resolve the crisis expeditiously in order to avoid a tragic outcome which had the potential to destabilise conditions on the ground."<br /><br />And Gaza's Hamas rulers and the radical Islamic Jihad movement had warned Israel it would face dire consequences if any of the 1,550 prisoners died.<br /><br />Most of the detainees refused food for four weeks, but two of them, Bilal Diab and Thaer Halahla, both from Islamic Jihad, went 76 days without eating, setting the record for a hunger strike among Palestinian prisoners.<br /><br />"If anything had happened to Thaer or Bilal, for example, it would have pushed Islamic Jihad to react immediately by firing rockets at Israel from Gaza, which Hamas would not have wanted because it wants to keep the peace there," a Palestinian official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.<br /><br />In a bid to resolve the standoff, Hamas had last week dispatched a delegation of former prisoners to Cairo to participate in negotiations, which were mediated by Egypt.<br /><br />The explosive potential of the strike had also worried officials in Ramallah.<br /><br />"Like Israel, some Palestinian circles were worried that the strike could deteriorate into a new intifada (uprising), which would be run by leaders of the first and second intifadas, but this time from inside Israeli prisons," said political analyst Khalil Shahine.<br /><br />On Sunday, Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas described the situation as "extremely dangerous" and warned it could spark a "national disaster" if any of the prisoners died while on hunger strike.<br /><br />The subject of the mass hunger strike played a major role in his talks on Saturday night with Israel's chief negotiator Yitzhak Molcho, who had travelled to Ramallah to hand Abbas a letter on the peace process from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.<br /><br />Shortly after news of the deal broke on Monday, Netanyahu's spokesman Mark Regev said Israel had backed the agreement "in response to a request by President Abbas" in the hope that it would "build confidence between the parties and further peace."<br /><br />But, Physicians for Human Rights-Israel (PHR) said it was unacceptable that the prisoners were forced to endanger their own lives in a bid to secure basic rights.<br /><br />"We regret that Israel's authorities had for years violated inmates' rights, so they had to risk their lives in their struggle," said Anat Litvin, head of prisoners and detainees at PHR.<br /><br />But she hailed the detainees for their use of a non-violent campaign to achieve those rights.<br /><br />"The Palestinian inmates proved that a non-violent and just struggle can bring important achievement and raise international awareness," she said in a PHR statement.<br /><br />Senior PLO official Hanan Ashrawi also hailed the peaceful protest as a "victory" for the entire Palestinian people.<br /><br />"They have truly demonstrated that non-violent resistance is an essential tool in our struggle for freedom," she said in a statement issued on Monday evening.<br /><br />"Our new heroes are Gandhi, Mandela and Martin Luther King," Palestinian negotiator Nabil Shaath has repeatedly said, alluding to three giants of peaceful popular resistance who have inspired the current Palestinian strategy, which was even publicly approved by Hamas in 2011.<br /><br />In a report published on Tuesday, Palestinian pollster Khalil Shikaki noted that "a majority of Palestinians oppose a resort to violence as a means of resisting Israeli occupation."<br /><br />Even so, he said the numbers of those engaging in such activity remained lowJeckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00913871084480825693noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1229880993597144036.post-27972668525003733202012-05-15T11:17:00.002-07:002012-05-15T11:17:53.783-07:00Bogota bombing kills two, targets ex-ministerBOGOTA — A bomb exploded in a crowded area of Bogota Tuesday, killing five people in what Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos said was an attempt to assassinate a former interior minister.<br /><br />"I've just learned that an attempt was made on the life of Mr. Fernando Londono. He was in his armored car," said Santos in a speech from the presidential palace.<br /><br />Santos said Londono's driver and a police guard were killed in the blast which ripped through an area of northwestern Bogota that is normally crowded with pedestrians from nearby office buildings and universities.<br /><br />The Red Cross said five people were killed in the explosion, and 17 others were injured.<br /><br />The attack came shortly after the police announced they had dismantled a car-bomb that leftist FARC rebels planned to use in an attack on the Bogota police headquarters.<br /><br />Witnesses said the blast, which occurred just after 11:00 am (1600 GMT), appeared to have been from a bomb placed on a public bus, but officials could not immediately confirm that.<br /><br />Half a dozen vehicles were incinerated in the explosion, AFP journalists on the scene said.<br /><br />The last car bomb to explode in the Colombian capital was on August 12, 2010, two days after Santos was inaugurated.<br /><br />That attack, which injured nine people, was blamed on the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the country's biggest leftist guerrilla group with an estimated 9,200 fighters.Jeckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00913871084480825693noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1229880993597144036.post-5782246745467761992012-05-15T11:15:00.001-07:002012-05-15T11:15:09.949-07:00France's Hollande in diplomatic test with ObamaFrance's first Socialist leader in 17 years is little known outside France and will have a baptism of fire, flying first to Germany to challenge Berlin's focus on austerity then to the United States to meet Obama and attend G8 and NATO summits.<br /><br />The talks in Camp David and Chicago will be the first encounter between world leaders and Hollande, a lifelong party official who has never held a ministerial post and whose affable and conciliatory manner will mark a change of style from the impulsive Nicolas Sarkozy.<br /><br />"I don't see this robust internationalism or activism Sarkozy had manifested," said Stephen Flanagan at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies. "There is still a certain amount of French pride in this idea of still being a global actor. I doubt it will be as prominent under the Socialists."<br /><br />The war in Afghanistan will top the talks agenda at the Group of Eight and NATO meetings in Camp David and Chicago.<br /><br />"Without wanting to take risks, I believe it is time to withdraw our combat troops by the end of 2012," Hollande said on May 2, four days before he defeated conservative Nicolas Sarkozy. "I will announce this decision at the NATO summit."<br /><br />Hollande's main foreign policy pledge is popular at home, even if defense ministry officials believe it may prove technically complicated without putting troops in danger.<br /><br />"Election pledges and political reality are very different," said a defense ministry official, who declined to be identified, adding a mid-2013 deadline would be more plausible.<br /><br />Former Socialist Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine indicated last week that Hollande could seek a compromise, saying the aim would be to unveil a timetable without embarrassing Obama.<br /><br />Despite his plans to challenge both German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Europe's fiscal pact and Obama over the Afghanistan pullout timetable, Hollande's aides say his conciliatory personality should make for positive diplomacy.<br /><br />Sarkozy's legendary firefighting skills, which put him at the centre of the world stage during Europe's debt crisis and as leader of the West's intervention in Libya last year, make him a hard act to follow.<br /><br />But Hollande, often likened to a tortoise next to his hare-like predecessor, hopes his thoughtful and unpretentious manner and his dislike of confrontation could make for strong foreign relations, even as he is keen to stick to his own ideas.<br /><br />For all the talk of moving away from Sarkozy's line, there appears to be a broad consensus on foreign policy.<br /><br />The Socialists supported key Sarkozy decisions such as the intervention in Libya and Ivory Coast, and like the outgoing government, want to give Islamist movements sweeping elections across the Arab world time to make good on democratic promises.<br /><br />U.S. HOPES, NATO MISGIVINGS<br /><br />The 57-year-old, who is invited to the White House before the G8 talks for his first meeting with Obama, says that under his leadership Paris will be a reliable ally for Washington, but will not be tied to it.<br /><br />"Hollande will be the new chief, the man of the hour at the G8 and NATO and he will be scrutinized by the others," said a French diplomatic source in the outgoing presidency involved in finalizing the program for the U.S. meetings.<br /><br />Helping him through the transition, Hollande has appointed sinophile Paul Jean-Ortiz, a career diplomat, who most recently headed up the foreign ministry's Asia department, as his diplomatic sherpa.Jeckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00913871084480825693noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1229880993597144036.post-80111098848996955592012-05-15T11:03:00.002-07:002012-05-15T11:03:12.249-07:00Lightning strikes French leader Hollande's plane on way to BerlinPARIS -- There's a metaphor in here somewhere: As spanking-new French President Francois Hollande headed to Germany on Tuesday for a possibly contentious meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel to discuss how to save the Eurozone, his plane was struck by lightning.<br /><br />Less than an hour after being sworn in at the Elysee Palace in Paris, the heavens opened for an afternoon of clouds, heavy rain, hail and even snow in some parts of France.<br /><br />Shortly after Hollande left for his very first international engagement, his Falcon 7X plane was forced to turn around and return to the Villacoublay military base in France.<br /><br />A second plane was found and Hollande left for Germany, an hour later than expected.<br />Hollande, 57, became France's 24th president at a swearing-in ceremony earlier in the day. Before leaving for talks with Merkel, the new president said he he hoped the pair could "find solutions together so that austerity is not a fatality."<br /><br />Merkel believes that reining in public spending and austerity is the answer to Europe's devastating debt crisis. Hollande believes the solution lies in investment and spending to boost growth.Jeckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00913871084480825693noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1229880993597144036.post-73942645073941839472012-05-15T11:01:00.000-07:002012-05-15T11:01:28.836-07:00Berkeley Trains "Harmless" Viruses to Harvest Human Kinetic EnergyViruses act as tiny piezoelectric generators<br /><br />Viruses, tiny chunks of protein and nucleic acid, have long plagued mankind and its evolutionary ancestors before it. But thanks to the wonders of modern genetic engineering, researchers believe they have finally been able to instill a beneficial purpose in these deadly pests.<br /><br />I. From Pest to Power<br /><br />A team of researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory -- one of 16 U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) national laboratories -- has created a special breed of virus that undergoes self-nanoassembly to form tiny piezoelectric generators -- machines which harvest mechanical energy (vibrations or pressure) to directly produce electricity.<br /><br />The special "bug" is the M13 bacteriophage, a rod-shaped virus that only infects bacteria (such as E. coli bacteria) -- not humans.<br /><br />Faculty researchers Seung-Wuk Lee, Ramamoorthy Ramesh, and Byung Yang Lee selected the virus due to its tendency to self-assemble into nanofilms, given its rod-like shape. The viruses tightly pack "like chopsticks in a box" and are easy to grow by the millions given a small supply of host bacteria.<br /><br /><br />Professor Ramesh, a professor of engineering and physics at the University of California Berkeley carried out tests on the virus films to see if the viruses' nanostructure was piezoelectric. Sure enough, when exposed to an electric field, the helical proteins coating the virus's genetic material twisted and turned -- a sure sign that the film was piezoelectric.<br /><br />II. Refining the Virus<br /><br />But the effect was too weak to be of use. So the researchers spliced a quadruplet of negatively charged amino acids into one of the coat proteins. The results was a larger voltage gradient across the coat. The researchers also tested stacking films of the modifed viruses to see how thick they could layer the viruses in order to get the maximum effect.<br /><br />The best results were observed using 20 of the virus nanofilms. Using spontaneous assembly, the researchers created a 1 cm2 multi-nanofilm with gold electrodes on either side.<br /><br />III. Great Expectations<br /><br />The development is an exciting one for the field of piezoelectrics, which relies on a phenomena first described a century and three decades ago. While the piezoelectric effect is a crucial part of electric cigarette lighters and scanning probe microscopes, typical piezoelectrics rely on toxic materials.<br /><br />By contrast, the virus piezoelectric films are nontoxic and nonreactive. The researchers imagine the self-assembing nanofilms to one-day become an integral part of clothing, producing power to recharge mobile electronics from common activities such as walking, lifting objects, or typing. The generator could also be used in medical nanobots.<br /><br />In the meantime, the team is busy working to refine their proof of concept design, by further tweaking the viruses' genetics to produce more current and voltage. Professor Lee comments, "We're now working on ways to improve on this proof-of-principle demonstration. Because the tools of biotechnology enable large-scale production of genetically modified viruses, piezoelectric materials based on viruses could offer a simple route to novel microelectronics in the future."<br /><br />The team's work has been published [abstract] in the prestigious peer-reviewed journal Nature Nanotechnology.Jeckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00913871084480825693noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1229880993597144036.post-52335271314128405012012-05-15T11:00:00.000-07:002012-05-15T11:00:16.924-07:00SpaceX Capsule Slated to Soar to Space Station on SaturdaySpaceX announced that it is gearing up to launch its Dragon capsule toward the International Space Station on Saturday. If successful, the trip will mark the first time a private spacecraft has ever docked at NASA’s habitable artificial satellite.<br /><br />Spaceflight company Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) will be sending the robotic capsule attached to its Falcon 9 rocket into orbit on a test mission to the orbital outpost. The launch date is now set for nearly three weeks after the capsule was originally slated to soar into space.<br /><br />The rocket will fly on Saturday, May 19 from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at 4:55 a.m. ET. It was originally scheduled to launch on Monday, April 30 but delays related to the spacecraft’s docking software pushed back the launch date.<br /><br />Although no one will be on board the Dragon, two astronauts at the International Space Station will open a hatch to attach the capsule to the site. According to SpaceX, this will take “extreme precision.”<br /><br />“After launching from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Dragon will begin its journey to the space station,” SpaceX said in a press release. “Just under 10 minutes after launch, Dragon will reach its preliminary orbit, deploy its solar arrays and begin a carefully choreographed series of engine firings to reach the station.”<br /><br />After a series of “complicated” tests, the space station will determine if the Dragon capsule is ready to dock at the station. Dragon will then spend about two weeks attached to the space station.<br /><br />The move is part of an effort to test Dragon’s reliability to transfer supplies to the station. SpaceX eventually plans to send passengers into the Earth’s low orbit.<br /><br />The Dragon spacecraft is expected to land in the Pacific Ocean two weeks after launch, off the coast of California.<br /><br />For more information about the launch, check out SpaceX’s video below.<br /><br />How long do you think it will take for SpaceX to send consumer passengers into space? Would you ever go for a ride on a private spacecraft? Let us know in the comments.Jeckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00913871084480825693noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1229880993597144036.post-48368109830715505932012-05-15T10:59:00.002-07:002012-05-15T10:59:21.568-07:00NIH Unveils Alzheimer's Prevention TrialBETHESDA, Md. -- Federal officials released an Alzheimer's prevention plan Tuesday and announced two large-scale clinical trials, including the first-ever prevention trial for the progressive brain disease.<br /><br />The trials, which were announced by National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Francis Collins, MD, at an Alzheimer's conference here, are both in late stages and early results could be announced later this year. They are part of the government's push to prevent or find a treatment for Alzheimer's disease by 2025. A draft of the plan was first released in February.<br /><br />Collins and Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius called the investment in the two clinical trials "historic" and "bold." Collins said he hoped the trials would spur additional research that would some day yield important answers about Alzheimer's disease.<br /><br />"Here we are poised to get this momentum going," Collins said.<br /><br />One of the trials being funded by the NIH is 5-year prevention trial focusing on an extended family of about 5,000 people living in Colombia, members of which have a genetic mutation that predisposes them to exhibit signs of Alzheimer's beginning at the age of 45, sometimes before.<br /><br />The trial will test whether Genentech's investigational Alzheimer's drug crenezumab can delay the onset of Alzheimer's when given to the Colombian family members before they show signs of the disease. Crenezumab, a humanized monoclonal antibody, binds to amyloid plaque in the brain, which is present in large amounts in the brains of people with Alzheimer's disease and is being explored as a proposed contributor to the disease.<br /><br />Results from several Alzheimer's trials testing other anti-amyloid agents have been disappointing, but the new trial will be the first testing an anti-amyloid agent in patients who don't yet have Alzheimer's.<br /><br />The NIH is funding a portion of the trial with a $16 million grant. The nonprofit Phoenix-based Banner Health, which is running the study, and Genentech will cover the remaining costs of the study.<br /><br />A second study, which is funded with a $7.9 million grant from NIH, will test whether a nasal spray that delivers insulin to the brain can improve memory function among 240 patients in the trial who have mild cognitive impairment and early Alzheimer's disease.<br /><br />Funding for the national plan comes from the $500 million the Obama administration allocated for Alzheimer's for fiscal 2012.<br /><br />President Obama's proposed fiscal 2013 budget also would provide $100 million to boost efforts to combat Alzheimer's disease. The bulk of that money -- $80 million -- is slated to go toward clinical research, and rest will go toward public awareness campaigns, provider education programs, caregiver support, and a improved data collection.<br /><br />The national Alzheimer's plan includes $2 million in funding for training for doctors, nurses, and other healthcare providers on recognizing symptoms of and managing Alzheimer's disease.<br /><br />HHS also debuted a new TV ad, and announced a new website, www.alzheimers.gov, to offer resources and support to patients and caregivers.<br /><br />The Alzheimer's Association applauded the plan.<br /><br />"This is a strong plan that promises important progress when implemented," Harry Johns, president and CEO of the Alzheimer's Association, said in a statement. "For all Americans – not just the more than 5 million living with Alzheimer's and their 15 million caregivers today – this plan is an historic achievement."Jeckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00913871084480825693noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1229880993597144036.post-11117618847163245712012-05-15T10:58:00.002-07:002012-05-15T10:58:35.915-07:00Beam Them Up, Scotty: Chinese Physicists Reportedly Break Teleportation Record Read more: http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/05/15/beam-them-up-scotty-chinese-physicists-reportedly-break-teleportation-record/?iid=ent-main-mostpop2#ixzz1uxjKco1EHarry Potter and Star Trek fans, rejoice! Teleportation is real. Using powerful lasers and optics to manipulate photons, or units of light, researchers in China set a record for teleporting a photon more than 10 miles (16 km), TIME reported in 2010. Now a different team of physicists at the University of Science and Technology of China in Shanghai says it has shattered that record, claiming to have sent a photon more than 60 miles (97 km).<br /><br />Quantum teleportation, which has been around since 1997, is a little different than what you see in sci-fi movies. Considered “one of the holy grails of practical quantum communication,” as the scientists write in their abstract, teleportation is the ability to essentially move one object from one place to another without traversing the space in between. But as Forbes explains, the actual object is not moving from point A to point B. Rather, the distant photon mirrors the information contained by the original photon, essentially becoming an identical twin.<br /><br />(LIST: The 50 Best Inventions)<br /><br />The team’s greatest contribution is not necessarily the distance it made the data travel but the method it used to harness the 1.3-watt laser beam that carries it. The longer a beam of light travels, the more it spreads out, causing the photon to lose information and trail off course. To keep the beam on target, the researchers created a technique that focuses and steers the laser. Though beaming up humans and animals à la Star Trek is not on the agenda anytime soon, as the technology becomes more sophisticated, it will likely be applied to military communication.<br /><br />What’s the big deal? As Matthew Luce, a researcher at the Defense Group Inc.’s Center for Intelligence Research and Analysis, told TIME in 2010:<br /><br />Read more: http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/05/15/beam-them-up-scotty-chinese-physicists-reportedly-break-teleportation-record/?iid=ent-main-mostpop2#ixzz1uxjRdr1KJeckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00913871084480825693noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1229880993597144036.post-13185692846459012592012-05-15T10:50:00.002-07:002012-05-15T10:50:45.073-07:00Researchers discover oldest pollinators entombed in amberStudying amber obtained from Cretaceous-era deposits, an international team of paleontologists have discovered the oldest known insects engaged in pollination. The 105-million to 110-million-year-old thrips they found are coated in pollen grains that were presumably used to feed the insects' offspring.<br /><br />Thysanopterans, commonly called thrips, are tiny, slender insects with fringed wings -- hence the name, from the Greek thysanos (fringed) and pteron (wing). Thrips are generally considered pests because they eat plant tissues, but some are efficient pollinators for several species of flowering plants.<br /><br />Amber samples containing the insects were obtained from a site in the Basque-Cantabrian Basin of northern Spain, a team headed by paleontologist Enrique Penalver of the Instituto Geologico y Minero de Espana in Madrid, reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. They imaged the insects using the synchrotron at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) in Grenoble, France. The images revealed two new species of thrips, which they named Gymnospollisthrips major and G. minor.<br /><br />Studying amber obtained from Cretaceous-era deposits, an international team of paleontologists have discovered the oldest known insects engaged in pollination. The 105-million to 110-million-year-old thrips they found are coated in pollen grains that were presumably used to feed the insects' offspring.<br /><br />Thysanopterans, commonly called thrips, are tiny, slender insects with fringed wings -- hence the name, from the Greek thysanos (fringed) and pteron (wing). Thrips are generally considered pests because they eat plant tissues, but some are efficient pollinators for several species of flowering plants.<br /><br />Amber samples containing the insects were obtained from a site in the Basque-Cantabrian Basin of northern Spain, a team headed by paleontologist Enrique Penalver of the Instituto Geologico y Minero de Espana in Madrid, reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. They imaged the insects using the synchrotron at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) in Grenoble, France. The images revealed two new species of thrips, which they named Gymnospollisthrips major and G. minor.Jeckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00913871084480825693noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1229880993597144036.post-39896873010289772382012-05-15T10:45:00.000-07:002012-05-15T10:45:25.718-07:00MLB fantasy roundtable: History says Teixeira due for rebound soon1. Mark Teixeira has raised the ire of many Yankees fans with his slow start. Should his fantasy owners be concerned?<br /><br />Will Carroll: If Yankees fans don't know Teixeira is a slow starter, well, are they really Yankees fans? Teixeira will heat up as the weather does, and Yankees fans can go back to pining for the days of Paul O'Neill and Tino Martinez between beers.<br /><br />Eric Mack: Big Tex start slow? Never! Of course, Big Tex is off to a slow start. He tends to be second-half guy. You should have known that drafting him, or trading for him early. If you want to worry about why he hasn't hit .300 since 2008, sure, but he is going to be fine to the tune of 30-100. You likely have bigger problems on your roster than Teixeira right now.<br /><br />David Sabino: Yankees fans need to calm down. Teixeira is a notoriously slow starter with a career slugging percentage of .423 in April. From May through July it rises to the .530s and from August on he slugs nearly .570. Tex showed signs of breaking his prolonged slump Monday night with a home run and a double against his hometown Orioles. As the weather warms up, so will he. In fact, he's one of the best buy-low candidates out there because a barrage of home runs and RBIs is about to commence.<br /><br />2. Jose Bautista also has had a slow start to the season but saw a bit of a rebound last week. Will it continue or has he become the new Adam Dunn?<br /><br />Carroll: I thought Albert Pujols was the new Dunn. And did we ever figure out what changed with Dunn? The hidden adjustments in the game are still hidden. We try to enforce patterns on things that are bursty, inherently small and often utterly random. As soon as someone writes that homers don't come in bursts, Josh Hamilton has a week for the record books. Bautista's ebbs and flows are just watched more closely than others.<br /><br />Mack: More disconcerting than Bautista's start is the decline he had in the second-half of last season. He went just .254-12-38-32. That is not a complete disaster, but those are not the kind of numbers you want to see out of a player getting picked in Round 1. Bautista was a candidate to go bust and has to some extent, but we still have to figure he is going to get hot and stay hot for awhile. Sluggers do 50 percent of their damage in 25 percent of the season. We need to keep that in mind.<br /><br />Sabino: While they both have low batting averages and walk a lot, the way Joey Bats and Dunn get there is totally different. Dunn already has struck out a major league-high 53 times this season, Bautista, just 22 times. What's been plaguing the two-time reigning home run champ is purely bad luck. He's making contact but too many of the balls he hits are being caught. A career .275 hitter on balls in play, Bautista's BABIP this year is .172, second-worst in the majors behind Eric Hosmer's .165. The adage says that baseball is a game of averages, and this, too, will average out. Look for a few more bloops to fall, a few more line drives to avoid fielders and he'll get back on track.<br /><br />3. Speed is never easy to find once the season has started. Any cheap options owners should target?<br /><br />Carroll: No. There's almost no speed out there that's unexpected. You have to reach for a guy like Darin Mastroianni, who had 10 steals in AAA before the Twins called him up, or hope that Tony Campana sticks with the Cubs. They're reaches to be sure and probably not worth the moves.<br /><br />Mack: Cameron Maybin might not rate cheap on the fantasy scale in rotisserie leagues, but he is hitting just .217 and is a great buy-low candidate. This is a talent that showed us plenty in the second half last season, so we should be expecting him to do some damage in fantasy as this season wears on. His steals are his best asset. If Peter Bourjos ever starts getting on base, he can swipe second a lot for you, while Campana, Cliff Pennington and Maicer Izturis might be available in mixed leagues.<br /><br />Sabino: The two latest speed possibilities are Elian Herrera, who was brought up to stop the bleeding in the Dodgers lineup with Juan Uribe and Matt Kemp hitting the disabled list, and Xavier Avery, a speedster with newfound power for the Orioles in the outfield. Herrera has stolen at least 30 bases in each of his last four minor league seasons and can play second, short, third and all three outfield spots. Avery has a chance to stick permanently at the top of an Orioles lineup in need of a catalyst. Both are highly recommended in single-league formats while mixed-leaguers should act according to their needs.<br /><br />4. Carlos Zambrano is off to one of the best starts of his career. Are you buying in for the rest of the season?<br /><br />Carroll: I like the team, so, yeah, I'm buying in. Zambrano had an incredible workload in his first few years, one that broke Kerry Wood and Mark Prior, so something of a down phase wasn't unexpected. While we were all paying attention to the trail of broken coolers and tantrums, he got a bit of rest. Ozzie Guillen might be the crazy pitcher whisperer or something, but he does have a track record of taking guys others don't want and getting them to buy in to his plan.<br /><br />Mack: This really doesn't surprise me. My Tout Wars sleeper actually is just 1-2, so it isn't all good for him, numbers-wise. He has only had one bad season in his career, 2011, so his start these first six weeks are more a function of the Zambrano we have come to know before the Cubs drama and stigma sunk him. Big Z won't sustain a sub-2.00 ERA and a WHIP around 1.000, but he can win 15 games, post a 3.50 ERA, 1.300 WHIP and strike out 175 batters. That is a top 30 fantasy starter.Jeckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00913871084480825693noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1229880993597144036.post-82932241864374030662012-05-15T10:44:00.000-07:002012-05-15T10:44:38.753-07:00Debate: NASCAR's burning questionsOur panel of experts weighs in this week on four of the biggest questions in NASCAR:<br /><br />Turn 1. Darlington Raceway delivered an interesting final 60 laps, with strategy, hard racing and a sentimental victory. Rate the race on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being "unwatchable" and 10 being "must-watch" and explain why.<br /><br />Terry Blount, ESPN.com: First half was a 4 and the second half an 8, so, mathematically speaking, that's a 6. But I'll say a 7 because the last half is more important and it was pretty interesting. Never thought I would see more than 170 consecutive laps at Darlington without a caution, but it fits the trend of the season. At this rate, Cup races are going to become like NBA games: No need to watch until the fourth quarter. And for now, no need to watch the race until the last 50 or 60 laps, but that will change.<br /><br />Ed Hinton, ESPN.com: I give it an 8. That nearly half the race went caution-free, and that there wasn't a wreck caution until Bobby Labonte spun with only 70 laps left in regulation, was a testament to driving skill throughout the field. And if you can't appreciate good driving at Darlington, where can you? Then the rest of the way the front-runners mixed it up, with Martin Truex Jr., Kyle Busch and Tony Stewart all showing strength -- though none was really a match for winner Jimmie Johnson. If the Lady in Black was a wrecking yard in the past, it was because not enough drivers knew how to dance gracefully with her. Now they've all learned to tango.<br /><br />Ryan McGee, ESPN The Magazine: I put it at an 8. It was typical Darlington in that it got strung out and single file for a while, but that conga line also happened to be running inches from the wall while sliding sideways, which I love. Then we had an unpredictable late finish, though Johnson took off on that final restart as if he was playing PS3 and had a boost button. And seeing racing history -- Hendrick's 200th Cup win -- is always a good night.<br /><br />David Newton, ESPN.com: Give it an 8.5. Forget all the early caution-free laps. When it came down to the end you had four of the sport's top stars -- Jimmie Johnson, Tony Stewart, Kyle Busch and Denny Hamlin -- in a double-file restart with a legitimate chance to win. You had tire strategy that took Martin Truex Jr. out of the hunt. You had the drama of Kurt Busch and Ryan Newman with late spinouts and a pit-road confrontation. And you had a great storyline in Johnson giving Rick Hendrick his 200th career win. That's more action than I got out of "Saturday Night Live." Short of Dale Earnhardt Jr. or Danica Patrick being a factor, you couldn't ask for much more.<br /><br />Turn 2. There was an after-race dustup between the Kurt Busch and Ryan Newman teams Saturday night at Darlington. What the heck happened and which side do you think was right?<br /><br />Blount: Newman's gas man (that guy is a giant) got a little carried away afterward and accidentally helped a race official fall on the hood of Busch's car. But hey, what's a little pushing and shoving after a race on the Lady in Black. And I'd be mad, too, if Busch almost ran over me (which Newman's crew claimed) with his burnout exiting the pits. The issue here once again is Kurt's temper. The only thing he needs to do this year, his clear objective, is to play nice. But he couldn't make it through a third of the season before losing his cool.<br /><br />Hinton: You can't blame Newman's crew for taking issue with what they thought was a brushback by Kurt in yet another tantrum at the wheel. NASCAR should have yet another look at his display. Other than that, it was mainly ol' boys being ol' boys and should be let go. Only trouble is, a NASCAR official got sent tumbling onto a hood, and I have to doubt seriously that Mike Helton & Co. will let that slide.<br /><br />McGee: I have no problem with the 39 crew taking issue with Busch's blast through their pits. Though I do always find it funny when guys go into someone else's pits clearly itching for a fight and then get all bent out of shape when there's a fight. I don't think anyone will get into a lot of trouble. Likely just a warning. The bigger issue is how much damage Kurt did to his prospects of future employment. Long after the details of what happened are forgotten, there will still be that photo out there of an enraged Busch being restrained by his crew. Fair or not, a sponsor looks at that image and says, "Uh oh, there he goes again …"<br /><br />Newton: A bit blown out of proportion. Yes, Ryan Newman's crew had a right to get upset because Kurt Busch got too close for comfort when speeding out of his pit box through theirs. Kurt was mad because he saw another good finish spoiled by a late mishap. Newman wasn't happy that Busch's spinout likely cost him a solid run. Guess what? They care. They get upset. But had Busch's last name been Gordon or Johnson the incident likely would have been overlooked by Newman's team and this wouldn't have been blown up in the media as Busch needing another dose of anger management.<br /><br />Turn 3. We've seen some big surprises before. Give us your top two drivers -- the ones who will transfer to the All-Star Race -- in Saturday's Sprint Showdown, and explain why you think they'll get there.<br /><br />Blount: One obvious choice is Martin Truex Jr., who is having a great season, but he doesn't have a good history at Charlotte. Two drivers who do have a strong history at Charlotte are Joey Logano and AJ Allmendinger. Dinger finished fifth and seventh in the two CMS Cup events last year. Logano has four top-10s in six starts at CMS.Jeckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00913871084480825693noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1229880993597144036.post-58704321563566293412012-05-15T10:43:00.003-07:002012-05-15T10:43:36.507-07:00Five ways LeBron beats PacersThe Pacers have their work cut out for them. Stop LeBron James, stop the Miami Heat. Luckily for Miami, James can cause more problems for Indiana than the Pacers can keep track of. Here are five ways he can beat the Pacers.<br /><br />1. In transition<br /><br />James is a dual threat in the open court, one of those rare talents who's equally adept at igniting the break and finishing it. James leads all players in the playoffs with 5.7 fast-break points per game. In other words a significant 21 percent of his points come in transition. His combination of size and speed makes backpedaling Pacers defenders reluctant to draw charges, often reasoning that the impact with his 260-pound body isn't worth the two points they're trying to save.<br /><br />Here's what makes James ultra-effective: As soon as he grabs a defensive board, his eyes turn up court and he quickly scans the lanes to find potential spot-up shooters. He's also looking for gaps in the defense. As he smartly pushes up the middle of the court to keep the floor balanced his head is always up. James will generally give the ball up just after crossing midcourt, leaving enough time to get it back should the defense commit to a shooter on the wing. But if he crosses half court and spots a driving lane, his next three steps can propel him to top speed almost instantaneously, forcing the defender to foul or otherwise end up on a poster.Jeckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00913871084480825693noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1229880993597144036.post-13026986309053256422012-05-15T10:43:00.000-07:002012-05-15T10:43:15.125-07:00This week in golf, at a glanceHP Byron Nelson Championship<br /><br />Site: Irving, Texas.<br /><br />Schedule: Thursday-Sunday.<br /><br />Course: TPC Four Seasons Resort (7,166 yards, par 70).<br /><br />Purse: $6.5 million. Winner's share: $1.17 million.<br /><br />TV: Golf Channel (Thursday-Friday, 3-6 p.m., 8:30-11:30 p.m.) and CBS (Saturday-Sunday, 3-6 p.m.).<br /><br />Last year: Keegan Bradley won his first PGA Tour title, parring the first hole of a playoff with Ryan Palmer. Bradley also won the PGA Championship in August.<br /><br />Last week: Matt Kuchar won The Players Championship for his fourth PGA Tour title, closing with a 2-under 70 for a two-stroke victory over Rickie Fowler, Zach Johnson, Ben Curtis and Martin Laird.<br /><br />Notes: Phil Mickelson, the 1996 winner, is making his 14th appearance in the event and first since 2007. He won at Pebble Beach in February for his 40th PGA Tour title and was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame last week. … Kuchar is in the field. … Byron Nelson died in 2006 at 94. He won a record 11 consecutive events in 1945. …Rory Sabbatini won in 2009, closing with a 6-under 64 for a tournament-record 19-under 261 total. … The Crowne Plaza Invitational is next week at Colonial in Fort Worth, followed by the Memorial at Muirfield Village in Dublin, Ohio.<br /><br />LPGA<br /><br />Sybase Match Play Championship<br /><br />Site: Gladstone, N.J.<br /><br />Schedule: Thursday-Sunday.<br /><br />Course: Hamilton Farm Golf Club (6,553 yards, par 72).<br /><br />Purse: $1.5 million. Winner's share: $375,000.<br /><br />TV: Golf Channel (Wednesday, 5-6 p.m., 9-10 p.m.; Thursday, midnight-1 a.m., 6:30-8:30 p.m.; Friday, 12:30-2:30 a.m., 6:30-8:30 p.m.; Saturday, 12:30-2:30 a.m., 3-6 p.m., 9:30-11:30 p.m.; Sunday, 4-6 p.m.; 9:30-11:30 p.m.).<br /><br />Last year: Norway's Suzann Pettersen beat Cristie Kerr 1-up in the final. Pettersen also won the LPGA Safeway Classic in August in Oregon.<br /><br />Last event: Thailand's Pornanong Phatlum won the Brazil Cup on May 6, beating Taiwan's Amy Hung by four strokes in the 36-hole event.<br /><br />Notes: Top-ranked Yani Tseng, a three-time winner this year, will open against Jang Jeong. Pettersen will face Jodi Ewart, and Michelle Wie will play Mina Harigae. … After single rounds Thursday and Friday, the third round and quarterfinals will be played Saturday and the semifinals and final are Sunday. … The tour is off next week. Play will resume June 1-3 with the ShopRite LPGA Classic in Galloway, N.J.<br /><br />European Tour<br /><br />Volvo World Match Play Championship<br /><br />Site: Casares, Spain.<br /><br />Schedule: Thursday-Sunday.<br /><br />Course: Finca Cortesin Golf Club (7,290 yards, par 72).<br /><br />Purse: $3.53 million. Winner's share: $899,400.<br /><br />TV: Golf Channel (Thursday-Friday, 8 a.m.-noon; Saturday, 6:30-11:30 a.m., 6:30-9:30 p.m.; Sunday, 6 a.m.-noon, 7-9:30 p.m.).<br /><br />Last year: Ian Poulter beat fellow Englishman Luke Donald 2 and 1 in the final.<br /><br />Last week: Ricardo Santos won the Madeira Islands Open to become the first Portuguese-born player to win a European Tour event in his home country. He closed with a 9-under 63 for a four-stroke victory.<br /><br />Notes: England's Paul Casey withdrew Sunday because of a right shoulder injury. Sweden's Robert Karlsson took his spot in the 24-man field. … The event was played at Wentworth in England from its inception in 1964 to 2007. … After round-robin play in eight three-man groups, the top two in each group will advance to the round of 16. … The BMW PGA Championship is next week at Wentworth, followed by the Wales Open at Celtic Manor.<br /><br />Nationwide Tour<br /><br />BMW Charity Pro-Am<br /><br />Site: Greer, S.C.<br /><br />Schedule: Thursday-Sunday.<br /><br />Courses: Thornblade Club (7,024 yards, par 71), Greenville Country Club (6,864 yards, par 72) and The Carolina Country Club (6,951 yards, par 72).<br /><br />Purse: $600,000. Winner's share: $108,000.<br /><br />TV: Golf Channel (Thursday-Friday, 12:30-2:30 p.m.; Saturday, 1-3 p.m.; Sunday, 2-4 p.m.; Monday, midnight-2 a.m.).<br /><br />Last year: South Africa's Garth Mulroy beat Sunghoon Kang on the first hole of a playoff when the South Korean missed a 3-foot par putt.<br /><br />Last event: Former University of Georgia player Hudson Swafford won the Stadion Classic on May 6 on his old college course, closing with a 9-under 62 for a one-stroke victory. The tour rookie holed out from a greenside bunker for birdie on the final hole, then waited 90 minutes for the rest of the players to complete the round. Two-time U.S. Open champion Lee Janzen and Luke List tied for second.<br /><br />Notes: The final round will be played at Thornblade Club. The Robert Trent Jones Sr.-designed Greenville course replaced Bright's Creek in the rotation. … The tour is off next week. Play will resume with The Rex Hospital Open on May 31-June 3 in Raleigh, N.C.<br /><br />Champions Tour<br /><br />Next event: Senior PGA Championship, May 24-27, The Golf Club at Harbor Shores, Benton Harbor, Mich.<br /><br />Last event: Fred Funk won the Insperity Championship at The Woodlands on May 6, birdieing the final hole for a one-stroke victory over Tom Lehman. Funk also won the 1992 Houston Open on the course.<br /><br />Other tournaments<br /><br />Men<br /><br />Japan Golf Tour: Totoumi Hamamatsu Open, Thursday-Sunday, Grandee Hamanako Golf Club, Shizuoka, Japan.<br /><br />OneAsia Tour: SK Telecom Open, Thursday-Sunday, Pinx Golf Club, Jeju Island, South Korea.<br /><br />NGA Tour: Cherry Blossom Classic, Thursday-Sunday, Cherry Blossom Golf and Country Club, Georgetown, Ky.<br /><br />eGolf Professional Tour: Willow Creek Open, Wednesday-Friday, High Point Country Club, High Point, N.C.<br /><br />Tour of the Americas: Nordeste Open, Wednesday-Saturday, Chaco Golf Club, Resistencia, Argentina.<br /><br />Women<br /><br />Japan LPGA Tour: Chukyo TV Bridgestone Ladies Open, Friday-Sunday, Chukyo Golf Club, Aichi, Japan.Jeckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00913871084480825693noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1229880993597144036.post-3496852629812460792012-05-15T10:42:00.000-07:002012-05-15T10:42:36.569-07:00Mother of Torii Hunter's son also arrested MondayThe mother of Los Angeles Angels right fielder Torii Hunter's son was arrested Monday morning while taking her son to school, The Dallas Morning News reports.<br /><br />Lanika McClinton, the mother of Darius McClinton-Hunter, was charged with driving without a valid license, the newspaper reports. She bonded out after posting bond.<br /><br /><br />The arrest came the same day Darius McClinton-Hunter, 17, became one of five Dallas-area high school students arrested on sexual assault charges. He was one of two adults charged with sexual assault on a child, which is a second-degree felony, according to the Prosper, Texas, police. Two juveniles were also charged and a third was charged with unlawful restraint. The police department also said more charges could be filed.<br /><br />Hunter left the Angels and was placed on the restricted list after his son's arrest.<br /><br />“This is very tough for a father,” Hunter tweeted after leaving Angel Stadium. “Thanks for ur prayers and support. Be Blessed everyone.”<br /><br />McClinton-Hunter is a talented wide receiver that has drawn heavy interest from schools such as Arkansas, LSU, Oklahoma, Oregon, SMU and Texas A&M.Jeckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00913871084480825693noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1229880993597144036.post-85848279166697475062012-05-15T10:40:00.000-07:002012-05-15T10:40:08.597-07:00Bradley the forgotten man in upcoming Pacquiao fightEveryone is still talking about whether or not Floyd Mayweather will ever face Manny Pacquiao. People even ask Timothy Bradley what he thinks the chances of the mega fight happening are.<br /><br />Never mind that Bradley, undefeated at 28-0, will be entering the ring on June 9 to take Pacquiao’s WBO welterweight title from him.<br /><br />“Everybody’s overlooking me,” Bradley said in a telephone interview. “Him, his people, the HBO producers, the fans. … It’s a good challenge, but it’s going to be a good challenge for him, too. I am out to prove everybody wrong, and I am definitely using that as fuel going into this fight.”<br /><br />The Palm Springs fighter saw that Pacquiao had trouble with Juan Manuel Marquez in his last fight (as he has in all three of his bouts with Marquez) but he is not going to take too much from that tape.<br /><br />“I watched it and I saw some things, but I am a lot better than Marquez,” Bradley said. “I have more speed and more power. And Pacquiao knows what I am going to. They’re preparing for me to come forward at him, and I will have a couple of tricks up my sleeve, but I will be coming at him too.”<br /><br />And why wouldn’t he? For all the talk of Pacquiao’s speed and quick punching power, Bradley — a 3.5 to 1 underdog — thinks he is faster than his opponent.<br /><br />“Speed kills, and they’re going to be really surprised when I have quicker hands and quicker feet than he does,” Bradley said. “He’s a Ferrari and I am a Lamborghini. We’re both exciting and fast and competitive. There is no way this fight goes 12 rounds.”<br /><br />Once again, Bradley will be on a plant-based vegan diet that he goes on when he is training. It’s tough because Bradley likes meat and fish, but he says it’s worth it.<br /><br />“It feels great,” said Bradley, who also takes USANA nutritional supplements to boost his energy level. “You can cut weight very quickly and you feel clean and very sharp.”<br /><br />At 28, Bradley is five years younger than Pacquiao. Besides the wear and tear on his body, Pacquiao and trainer Freddie Roach cited a laundry list of distractions (marital and tax problems, gambling, fatigue from too much women and basketball) to reporters to explain why he hasn’t been especially sharp his last three fights.<br /><br />“I don’t know if he is on the way down, but I am on the way up,” Bradley said. “I respect him, he has been a great champion, but this is my chance to become a superstar. And you only get one chance.”Jeckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00913871084480825693noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1229880993597144036.post-28829731646357277812012-05-15T10:38:00.000-07:002012-05-15T10:38:01.632-07:00Coaches discuss playoff models at ACC meetingsAMELIA ISLAND, Fla. -- Aside from the drama at this year’s ACC meetings revolving around Florida State’s conference alignment status, coaches and administrators this week have had other pressing issues worth discussing.<br /><br />Chief among them: the format of forthcoming college-football playoffs.<br /><br />After talking with officials at their schools all throughout this month, conference commissioners will meet in late June to determine the path forward for the sport’s altered postseason.<br /><br />If ACC coaches were given the task of picking the setup, they would go with a model that calls for four conference champions to participate in the two-round playoff.<br /><br />"We think being a champion is very important," FSU coach Jimbo Fisher said. "Being a conference champion is no small task. Not only are you having to get through your conference, but you’ve got to turn around and get through your conference game -- which all of us but one do."<br /><br />The Big 12 does not currently have a conference-championship game.<br /><br />FSU home basketball schedule announced<br /><br />FSU’s men’s basketball team will begin its ACC Tournament title defense with games against nine teams at the Donald L. Tucker Center during the 2012-13 season. The Seminoles’ home schedule was announced Monday.<br /><br />The slate includes conference games against Duke, North Carolina and Miami. The three teams also traveled to Tallahassee last season. FSU was 2-1 at home against them, losing once to Duke.<br /><br />FSU also will host a game against rival Florida. The Seminoles lost to the Gators in Gainesville last December.<br /><br />Additionally, FSU will play Minnesota at home Nov. 27 as part of the annual ACC/Big Ten Challenge. The Seminoles lost on the road to Michigan State in last year’s Challenge. They are 2-1 all-time against the Gophers.<br /><br />As had been previously announced, they also will host games as part of the Coaches vs. Cancer Tournament that concludes with games at Madison Square Garden in New York.<br /><br />Miami gets Michigan State<br /><br />As part of Monday’s ACC/Big Ten Challenge announcement, Miami learned it would be playing Michigan State on Nov. 28.<br /><br />Spetman, Fisher to miss time<br /><br />FSU athletics director Randy Spetman and Fisher will miss parts of this year’s meetings. Spetman, who had arrived at Amelia Island on Sunday night, missed Monday because he was giving a speech at the Air Force Academy. He’ll be back Tuesday.Jeckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00913871084480825693noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1229880993597144036.post-87445208945694183572012-05-15T10:37:00.000-07:002012-05-15T10:37:09.502-07:00Clemens e-mail threatens informants with 'his people'WASHINGTON -- Strength coach Brian McNamee said he felt "creepy" injecting Roger Clemens' wife Debbie with human growth hormone at Clemens' Houston home in 2003.<br /><br />And when a government investigation turned up the heat in 2006, a testy e-mail exchange between Clemens and McNamee ensued.<br /><br />Jurors saw a copy of an e-mail from Rocket22 (Clemens) threatening to send "his people" after anyone who would rat him out to authorities. McNamee assured Clemens he would not flip but would "hop on a plane, find you and slap you very hard" if he was implicated.<br /><br />McNamee, who could be the government's only witness to say he saw Roger Clemens use performance-enhancing drugs, resumed his testimony Tuesday, saying he injected the seven-time Cy Young Award winner with HGH "10 to 20 times" during the 2000 season alone.<br /><br />I didn't feel comfortable bending down in front of my friend's wife," McNamee said. "It didn't feel normal or right. Part of me asked, 'Why couldn't Roger do this? He's seen how I do it enough times. … Debbie looked at Roger and said, 'I can't believe you're going to let him do this to me.' But I was just doing what he asked."<br /><br />McNamee said Clemens retained him as his personal trainer and paid him $5,000 per month after he was fired by the New York Yankees as an assistant strength coach following the 2001 season.<br /><br />McNamee, under questioning from prosecuting attorney Daniel Butler, said that in 2001 he retrieved and saved medical waste from Clemens' New York apartment, where injections often took place.<br /><br />McNamee said he saved some medical waste at his home in response to his wife Eileen's protests that he could become the fall guy if Clemens was caught. "You're going to go down. You're going to go down," McNamee said his wife warned him.<br /><br />On Monday, McNamee testified that he injected Clemens with steroids when he was a member of the Blue Jays in 1998. In 2000, with both men employed by the Yankees, McNamee said Clemens told him: "I'm ready to start up again."<br /><br />McNamee said he approached Kirk Radomski in late June or early July to supply what Clemens needed. "I asked (Radomski) if he had stuff starting pitchers would take. He said HGH was the latest and greatest product," McNamee said. McNamee says he knew Radomski could supply what Clemens needed and knew Radomski "through David Segui," a former Blue Jays player.<br /><br />McNamee said he met Radomski in a bank parking lot to obtain the performance enhancers, brought them to Yankee Stadium and placed them under clothing in Clemens' locker. Clemens then asked to be injected in his apartment that night.<br /><br />In addition to administering injections in Clemens' bedroom, McNamee said injections took place near the Jacuzzi in the Yankees clubhouse and on the road. In one case, when McNamee said he did not have the necessary rubbing alcohol, he said Clemens got the hotel manager to open the gift shop.<br /><br />McNamee testified that he injected Clemens with "6 to 10" shots of testosterone and "10 to 20" shots of HGH during the Yankees' 2000 championship season.<br /><br />McNamee said he retrieved a crumpled beer can from under Clemens' sink and stuffed into it the medical waste -- ampoules, needles, cotton balls -- that he brought home, placed in a FedEx box he labeled "Clem" and stored in a cedar closet. He said that in 2002, he added pills and needle tips that Clemens asked him to dispose of, to the same box in the closet.Jeckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00913871084480825693noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1229880993597144036.post-83998549489353543772012-05-15T10:36:00.000-07:002012-05-15T10:36:14.939-07:00Hamilton's historic week among all-time bestWhen Josh Hamilton was interviewed about the events of the seven days from May 7-13, he provided a big-league understatement, something he hasn't been very good at doing while doing most of the talking with his bat.<br /><br />"It's been a good week," he said.<br /><br />Hamilton apparently was too busy running around bases with his head down to know just how good of a week he had. <br /><br />With a batting average of .467 (14-for-30), nine home runs, including four in one historic game last Tuesday, plus two doubles and 18 RBIs, Hamilton simply had one of the best weeks at the plate in Major League history.<br /><br />And he joined some heady company in the process.<br /><br />The statisticians at the Elias Sports Bureau came up with three relatively recent examples and two older ones to put Hamilton in his proper historic place. The results made the Rangers outfielder's freakish accomplishment even that much more impressive.<br /><br />The last player to have a comparable week to Hamilton's was Shawn Green, who went on a tear while with the Dodgers from May 21-27, 2002, almost exactly 10 years ago. Green went 17-for-32 (.531) with 10 homers and 18 RBIs in that seven-day period, which began on a Tuesday and ended the following Monday.<br /><br />Like Hamilton, Green enjoyed a four-homer game during that big week. Green's was a tad better than Hamilton's, too, because Green went 6-for-6 in the May 23 game against the Milwaukee Brewers (Hamilton went 5-for-5 last Tuesday). Then again, Hamilton got him in the RBI department for the one game, driving in eight to Green's seven.<br /><br />"That it could happen in just one day blows my mind," Green said at the time. "I don't like too much attention, but it's been fun."<br /><br />No kidding. Nineteen total bases -- 18 for Hamilton -- in one game and a whole lot more in a week. That does sound like a lot of fun. As long as you're not pitching.<br /><br />The next person on the list had his share of fun, too. How else to explain the seven-day performance of Carlos Delgado from Aug. 6-12, 1999, when the then-Blue Jays first baseman went 16-for-29 (.552) with eight homers and 13 RBIs?<br /><br />Delgado's "week" to remember began on a Friday, when he hit three homers against the Texas Rangers in Arlington. He was a mere 2-for-4 the next night and failed to leave the yard, but he then went deep in the ensuing four games, including a two-homer night in the Metrodome against the Twins on Aug. 10.<br /><br />Oddly, Delgado's famed four-homer game did not come in this stretch. The slugger wouldn't etch that particular feat in the history books until Sept. 25, 2003, when he smacked four out of what was then called SkyDome against the team that was then called the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, becoming the last man to launch four big flies in one game until Hamilton did it.<br /><br />Less than a year before Delgado's seven-day binge, the best week came courtesy of Albert Belle, who hit .515 (17-for-33) with nine homers and 19 RBIs from July 9-15, 1998, while a member of the Chicago White Sox.<br /><br />July 9 was a Tuesday, and Belle started things off by going 2-for-4 with a homer and two RBIs. He homered twice while driving in six runs the next day, homered once and drove in three the day after that, and tossed in a hitless game on July 12 before homering twice on the 13th, once on the 14th and adding two more on the 15th -- one in each game of a doubleheader.<br /><br />Perhaps more incredible than the results of those seven games was the fact that Belle finished the year with a .328 batting average, 49 homers, 152 RBIs, an OPS+ of 172 and a .655 slugging percentage ... and ended up eighth in the American League MVP voting.<br /><br />Yes, Hamilton has some big-name company when it comes to MLB's best weeks ever, and there aren't many names bigger than that of the man who went 21-for-40 (.525) with seven homers and 23 RBIs from Aug. 21-27, 1935.<br /><br />That would be Henry Louis Gehrig, and although the numbers are gaudy, so is the old-school reality of the time that the Iron Horse's Yankees were in the midst of an iron schedule. The gamedays of Aug. 21 (a Wednesday), and each day from Aug. 25-27 (plus Aug. 28 and the next day New York played, Aug. 31), were all filled with twinbills, so Gehrig had 11 games in a seven-day span.<br /><br />And along the same lines, Hall of Famer Mel Ott had himself quite a week from June 16-22, 1929, when the New York Giants right fielder hit .541 (20-for-37) with seven homers and 22 RBIs. Ott's streak, which began with a run-of-the-mill 2-for-5, one-homer, two-RBI Sunday game against the Brooklyn Robins at Ebbets Field, included three doubleheaders for a total of nine games.<br /><br />Looking back, all of this makes Hamilton's Monday-through-Sunday highlight reel stack up just fine with the best in Major League history.Jeckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00913871084480825693noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1229880993597144036.post-36243898608314713412012-05-15T10:35:00.002-07:002012-05-15T10:35:38.390-07:00Reports: VCU headed to Atlantic 10RICHMOND, Va. -- VCU is joining the Atlantic 10 after deciding to leave the Colonial Athletic Association, a person familiar with the decision said Tuesday.<br /><br />The person spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the move has not been publicly announced. VCU has scheduled a 1:30 p.m. ET news conference Tuesday and the Atlantic 10 has scheduled a teleconference for later Tuesday afternoon.<br /><br />The timetable for the move remains unclear, though CBSSports.com reported Monday that VCU will join the Atlantic 10 in 2013.<br /><br />CAA bylaws provide that a team leaving the league immediately becomes ineligible for the conference basketball tournament, league commissioner Tom Yeager said Monday. He said at the time that he had not yet heard from VCU or the Atlantic 10 about the shift in conferences.<br /><br />Yeager did not return a phone message Tuesday.<br /><br />The CAA tournament is played down the street from VCU's home arena, and has attracted record crowds in recent years with VCU among the favorites.<br /><br />The move will again place VCU, one of the rising programs in the nation, in the same league as city rival Richmond. The switch is expected to give a competitive and financial boost to the Rams' program.<br /><br />VCU and coach Shaka Smart became the biggest story of the 2011 NCAA tournament when they were one of the last, and most controversial, schools allowed in the field. But once in, they beat five BCS-level schools to go from the First Four to the Final Four. After the tournament, VCU gave Smart an eight-year contract that pays him an average of $1.21 million per year.<br /><br />The Rams won the CAA tournament again this season, beat Wright State in the opening round of the NCAA tournament and came within a missed 3-pointer at the buzzer against Indiana of reaching the round of 16 again.<br /><br />But the Rams were the only CAA school among the 68 teams invited to the tournament. Drexel, which had won 27 games and had a 19-game winning streak snapped in the tourney championship game, was relegated to the NIT.<br /><br />That scenario is far less likely to happen to a runner-up in the Atlantic 10, which has received 20 at-large bids to the NCAA tournament since 2000. The CAA has just four at-large bids in that span.<br /><br />The loss of one of its three best basketball programs comes as a big blow to the CAA, which last week won a reprieve when George Mason announced it was staying.<br /><br />Old Dominion, the other team considering a change in conference affiliation, has not yet announced its plans. The school's board discussed the situation in a closed session Monday.Jeckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00913871084480825693noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1229880993597144036.post-70717722702864847352012-05-15T10:34:00.000-07:002012-05-15T10:34:01.721-07:00Ex-Miami Coach Johnson Voted Into College Football Hall of FameNational championship-winning coaches Jimmy Johnson and Phil Fulmer are among 17 inductees to the College Football Hall of Fame.<br /><br />Former Brigham Young University quarterback Ty Detmer, the 1990 Heisman Trophy winner as college football’s best player, is also in the Hall of Fame’s class of 2012, along with former Syracuse University wide receiver Art Monk.<br /><br />Johnson, 68, coached at Oklahoma State from 1979 to 1983 and the University of Miami from 1984 to 1988, compiling an 81- 34-3 record. He went 52-9 in five seasons with the Hurricanes and led Miami to a 12-0 season and the 1987 national championship before coaching in the National Football League.<br /><br />“People for years have asked me to compare coaching in professional football and coaching in college football,” Johnson said at a news conference in New York. “While winning back-to-back Super Bowls with the Dallas Cowboys was rewarding, the most fun I had in football was in college.”<br /><br />Fulmer, 61, had a 152-52 record as the University of Tennessee’s coach from 1992 to 2008 and led the Volunteers to the first Bowl Championship Series title in 1998.<br /><br />Former Texas A&M coach R.C. Slocum was also selected to the Hall of Fame, while others in this year’s class include Louisiana State tailback Charles Alexander, Purdue halfback Otis Armstrong and California quarterback Steve Bartkowski.<br /><br />Also selected were University of Southern California split end Hal Bedsole, Notre Dame tight end Dave Casper, Rice quarterback Tommy Kramer, Colorado State defensive back Greg Myers, UCLA offensive tackle Jonathan Ogden, Texas Tech defensive tackle Gabe Rivera, Kansas State linebacker Mark Simoneau and Air Force safety Scott Thomas. Colorado offensive lineman John Wooten was a selection of the Hall of Fame’s veterans committee.Jeckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00913871084480825693noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1229880993597144036.post-43678491094914934302012-05-15T10:33:00.003-07:002012-05-15T10:33:38.361-07:00Kyrie Irving selected NBA's top rookieINDEPENDENCE, Ohio (AP) — Cavaliers guard Kyrie Irving is the NBA's Rookie of the Year, winning the award with the same ease as he dribbled past defenders this season.<br /><br />Irving received 117 of 120 possible first-place votes from a nationwide media panel of 120 writers and broadcasters. Irving finished with 592 points, way ahead of Minnesota's Ricky Rubio (170) and Denver's Kenneth Faried (129), who was third.<br /><br /> VIDEO: Irving named NBA's top rookie<br /><br />Faried, San Antonio's Kawhi Leonard and New York's Iman Shumpert received the other first-place votes, denying Irving's bid to become the fourth player to win the award unanimously.<br /><br />The 20-year-old is the second Cleveland player to win the award, joining LeBron James in 2004.<br /><br />Irving's award was expected. It wasn't a matter of if, but when, he would get it.<br /><br />The No. 1 overall pick in last year's draft, he was clearly the league's top first-year player, leading all rookies — and the Cavs — in scoring with 18.5 points per game. He also led all rookies in field-goal percentage (46.8), was second in assists (5.4) and became one of just six rookies in league history to average at least 18 points and five assists.<br /><br />However, it was the other elements of his game — a nasty crossover dribble, a fearless desire to get to the basket, and a clutch, cold-blooded instinct in the fourth quarter that separated him from the others.<br /><br />Irving, who played only 11 games at Duke before turning pro, regularly took over games down the stretch for the Cavaliers. He kept them competitive and in the playoff race until mid-March when the team's front office decided to build for the future by trading his backup, guard Ramon Sessions, to the Los Angeles Lakers for a first-round draft pick.<br /><br />Once Minnesota's Ricky Rubio went down with a season-ending knee injury, Irving became the runaway favorite to win rookie of the year honors.<br /><br />And beyond his impressive statistics, Irving brought hope to the Cavaliers and Cleveland fans, who have spent the past two seasons trying to move past James leaving as a free agent before he could bring them their first league title.<br /><br />Irving appears to be the major piece the Cavs can build around, and they plan to get him some help next month with three of the top 34 picks in the NBA draft. The Cavs got lucky and won the draft lottery a year ago, paving the way for them to select Irving.<br /><br />He was clearly the perfect choice.<br /><br />Despite having a limited training camp because of the labor lockout, Irving started the opener for coach Byron Scott, who has formed a strong bond with his young star. He believes Irving has just scratched the surface of his potential.<br /><br />"The progression of Kyrie from Game 1 to Game 50 probably exceeded everyone's expectations," Scott said. "I don't think anyone expected him to do what he did this season."<br /><br />Although it was assumed Irving would start the season opener, Scott didn't inform him until the day of the game so as not to pamper the playmaker. But Irving had earned the job and it didn't take him long to show the Cavs and the rest of the NBA that stardom would be in his future.<br /><br />In just his third game, he had a chance to hit a game-winning layup at Indiana but rolled his shot off the rim. Still, Irving's desire to take the last shot in a pressure-packed moment made a huge impression on his teammates and coaches, who joked they were sure he wasn't just 19.<br /><br />A month later in Boston, with his father, Drederick, sitting in a courtside seat, Irving had perhaps the defining moment of his season. With the Cavs down by two, Irving, ignoring his failure in a previous situation, drove to the basket, split two defenders and flipped in a left-handed layup to beat the Celtics.<br /><br />The next day he handled his heroics with humility that was on display all season.<br /><br />"Just a shot," he said.<br /><br />Irving arrived with none of the superstar trappings. There was no entourage or multimillion dollar shoe contract, no cameras chronicling his every move. He was a team player in the truest sense, often tossing the praise on others and minimizing his role in victories.<br /><br />Irving chose to blend in. He stepped away from the spotlight.<br /><br />At the Rising Stars game during All-Star weekend in Orlando, Irving made all eight 3-pointers to win MVP honors. Posing for a photograph afterward, Irving lowered the crystal he was presented and told the photographer, "Make sure you get the Cleveland" on the front of his jersey.<br /><br />"That wasn't a publicity stunt at all," Irving said when the season ended. "I just wanted to make sure they got the Cleveland uniform in it. We're not as publicized as everybody else."<br /><br />Irving's modesty rubbed off on everyone around him.<br /><br />"He is just a fantastic kid," Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert said. "He's got a great heart. He is genuine. He loves basketball. He loves people. People love being around him. He's humble. He's a great guy."Jeckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00913871084480825693noreply@blogger.com0